BOTS
BY JIM DAVIES, ACTIONARY
ARE YOU READY FOR BOTS TO CALL?
YOU NEED TO BE THOROUGHLY AI-FLUENT FOR WHEN THEY DO.
Tech giants like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft are racing to give their AI agents real“ agency”: the ability to reason, plan, and act on their own. It ' s the dawn of what ' s being called Agentic AI. And it’ s about to completely change how customers engage with brands, fundamentally changing the customer journey.
If businesses aren’ t ready, the coming wave of automated interactions may drown contact center agents before they even know what hit them.
18 CONTACT CENTER PIPELINE
ILLUSTRATION PROVIDED BY ADOBE STOCK
WHEN AI FOUND ITS VOICE AND WE DIDN’ T LISTEN
The roots of today’ s Agentic AI trace back over a decade. Early voice assistants like Apple’ s Siri( 2011) introduced the idea of conversational interfaces, handling simple commands on smartphones. Following that came Amazon’ s Alexa( 2014), which popularized voice-controlled smart home assistants, further integrating AI into daily life but still primarily as reactive tools.
Then, in 2018, Google announced Google Duplex, an AI system capable of calling real businesses, like restaurants and hair salons, and holding remarkably human-sounding conversations. It could understand natural language, respond fluidly, and even mimic speech patterns like pausing and adding“ um.” It didn’ t just answer questions, it acted.
That moment marked the beginning of AI stepping beyond scripted bots and into the real world.
But the world wasn’ t quite ready. The infrastructure wasn’ t mature. Businesses lacked APIs, standardized data, and digital workflows. Consumers weren’ t accustomed to autonomous AI; most still saw bots as frustrating IVRs or popup widgets.
AI-POWERED AUTOMATION IS ALREADY HERE
Things have changed a lot. More mature voice AI and large language models( LLMs) are capable of handling vastly broader contexts.
We live in a culture more accustomed to AI assistance( e. g., ChatGPT, Alexa, customer service bots). Businesses are more digitally integrated with APIs, CRM solutions, and appointment systems. And there’ s considerable interest in Agentic AI that acts on your behalf across tasks and chats.
The most important leaders in the AI revolution are now making some very bold claims:
• Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI. In an interview with Technology Review, he described the ultimate AI application as a " super-competent colleague that knows absolutely everything about my whole life, every email, every conversation I ' ve ever had, but doesn ' t feel like an extension."
SOON, CONSUMER SMARTPHONES, LAPTOPS, OR BROWSERS COULD BE QUIETLY NEGOTIATING ON THEIR BEHALF WITH NO SUPERVISION NEEDED.